We were lucky to catch up with Aleina Radovan recently and have shared our conversation below.

Aleina, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Alright – so having the idea is one thing, but going from idea to execution is where countless people drop the ball. Can you talk to us about your journey from idea to execution?

I started my business by a happy accident during the height of the 2020 Covid Pandemic. I got laid off instantaneously from my event coordinating position at a boutique hotel in Los Angeles and realized quickly the corporate world isn’t so stable after all. After 2 months passed I realized I wasn’t going to get called back anytime soon so I knew it was time to take things into my own hands. The idea of making a living on the internet has always been something that fascinated me from an early age. Growing up, I saw more and more people make well over a living’s wage from being their own boss on the internet. I kept telling myself if other people could be their own boss and have control over the time and location freedom, why can’t I? So I went down the “how to make money online and be your own boss” rabbit hole of the internet and boy oh boy can that be an overwhelming place to be.

There was one particular facebook Ad I came across that immediately lit a fire in my intuition. It was a branding & website design course that was aimed towards women who wanted to take back control of their life by starting their own business working completely online – aka everything I was looking for. This course basically taught me how to gain the skills of being a branding & website designer, and then how to market to start a business and attracting clients. I always had a passion for all things design from a young age but never thought I could make a living out of it. Prior to taking this course my first quarantine activity was teaching myself photoshop and the adobe programs, so this course fit right into those goals. Since I was collecting unemployment checks for a few months, I took advantage of the freetime I had and treated this course like my own 9-5. Each day I would work on building my illustrator skills and worked on building out my portfolio. I did this everyday for about 3 months until I had a portfolio I was proud of to share with the world and I created my first instagram post announcing this business venture of mine.

I truly had no idea where this was going to go. I started posting everyday and engaging with other like minded women who had their own online businesses and slowly built a following on instagram. Once my website was launched about a month after my instagram, I landed my first 2 clients almost immediately – a sweets baker in Australia and a food blogger in Canada. I will say looking back now, when I first started my business my prices were astronomically low because I didn’t have the confidence in my services. Overtime with each project, I became more confident in my process and had the client testimonials and projects to back it up.

Within 6 months of launching my business I replaced my monthly corporate income. My event planning job that I got laid off of ended up calling me back a year later but I turned down their offer. At this point I was confident that my business would succeed, and here I am still going strong as I enter my fourth year of business!

Aleina, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Aloha! My name is Aleina and I am a branding and showit website designer. If you don’t know what exactly that is, I basically custom design the visual identity (logos, color palettes, fonts, textures/patterns) and build out custom websites for my clients. Everything that I design is backed in strategy, focusing on my clients goals and who they are trying to target. The visual identity is then curated based on the emotions we are aiming to exude and furthermore translates into their virtual storefront that is their website! My clients consist of a variety of women entrepreneurs who have service based businesses. I particularly love working with other creatives because I get to bring out their own creative talent into the virtual space. I work with a lot of photographers, videographers, florists, event planners, hair stylists and more!

I specialize in designing websites on the showit platform, as this is a platform that a lot of creatives love (it’s very similar to the adobe programs) It’s also a platform that doesn’t involve coding so my clients can update their website without feeling scared that they are going to mess it up!

When clients come to me for a custom brand and website they either don’t have the time to build their website themselves and/or don’t have the skillset. They realize that in order to establish a professional online presence they feel confident in, they need to invest and outsource to a designer!

My business is also in the transitioning phase of slowly becoming an agency. I currently partner with a copywriter and an SEO specialist for those clients who really want to go above and beyond a pretty website. Our trifecta package is a fully done for you service as my copywriter captures my client’s brand voice and my SEO specialist does extensive keyword research and technical optimization to help with the clients who want to rank on Google.

The thing that I absolutely love most about my business is getting to work with the most passionate and like-minded women entrepreneurs. Seeing their reactions to their new branding and website never gets old and it makes me feel good knowing that I’m helping other female entrepreneurs in this space feel confident showing up in their own business.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I’ll say right off the bat that I have a love hate relationship with social media. The algorithms and trends are constantly changing that it can definitely get overwhelming when it comes to marketing your business online. However, it is definitely the most powerful tool in building relationships and connecting with potential clients and partners. My business would not exist if it weren’t for instagram. 80% of my clients come from Instagram and the rest are from referrals! The key to building your audience online is to throw imposter syndrome out the door. Record that reel, be silly, show up as a thought leader, provide VALUE! People start following you on instagram because they either relate to you, trust you or are inspired by you.

In order to establish those relationships it’s important to stop second guessing yourself and start taking some action! If it helps, try to pinpoint what is holding you back from posting online. From there, take any action that will make you feel more confident. For example, I was embarrassed for the longest time to show my face on instagram and do those silly reels, but in reality, I really just didn’t want my own personal network finding my business account. So what did I do? I blocked a bunch of my friends and family so they couldn’t find my account in the beginning. It was a silly thing to do but it made me feel more comfortable and confident in showing up online without the fear of judgment from my own peers. Eventually I started gaining more confidence in my business and what I was posting. Now, I could care less if my personal network finds my account because I have a thriving business!

In addition to creating content that people will want to engage with, what really helped me build my audience was being active with engaging everyday. I would engage with three types of accounts: 1) Other business owners that provided the same services (community over competition!), 2) Other business owners that have different services but similar ideal clients (partnership opportunities) and 3) Ideal Clients!

My trick to establishing relationships right off the bat is reacting to active stories because then you end up directly in their DMs and can start a conversation from there! My goal is to never sell right away but to actually have the main goal of establishing friendships! When you establish friendships even if they aren’t going to be your client, you become top of mind as long as your service is known.

Any thoughts, advice, or strategies you can share for fostering brand loyalty?

I have a very organized process with my clients from onboarding to offboarding. When I complete a branding & website design project I send an offboarding PDF that has ways my clients can continue working with me if they are in need of monthly help. I also have a referral program in place so anytime a client refers me to someone that signs on, they will receive a monetary incentive. So far I have had 3 clients that came back to me for their own rebrands because they evolved their business over the last few years and they enjoyed working with me the first time so they knew they were in good hands for their rebrand. I become my client’s business cheerleader in a sense and always make it known to them that I am there to help them even after their project is “done.”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://aleinacreativeco.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/aleinacreativeco/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aleinacreativeco
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aleinacreativeco/

Image Credits
Photography by MD Photography